Context Or Opinion

by Editor
July 22, 2015 at 10:23 am

https://www.smartertimes.com/1427/context-or-opinion

A dispatch from Tehran reports, "The agreement will end punitive sanctions imposed on Iran by the United Nations, United States and European Union in exchange for verifiable guarantees that the Iranian nuclear program remains peaceful."

That's supposed to be neutral background context, but in fact, as other, better Times coverage indicates, it's a tendentious description. There's a lively dispute over whether the Iranian guarantees — promises is another way to describe them — are indeed "verifiable." For example, a Times dispatch from Washington begins, "The Obama administration's claim that the Iran nuclear accord provides for airtight verification procedures is coming under challenge from nuclear experts with long experience in monitoring Tehran's program." Future Times coverage should avoid describing Iranian promises as "verifiable guarantees," or at least attribute the description to advocates of the deal rather than repeating it, unattributed, as if it were uncontested fact.